Death of a Hero
by Omicron99
Summary: A two part story about the death of either Percy or Annabeth.


**Disclaimer: Everything i didn't make up belongs to Rick Riordan**

••••

Annabeth knew that they were screwed the moment the ground exploded...

_**[Five minutes earlier]**_

Everything was going well, everything was going as planned so far, they weren't caught yet, the monsters still hadn't notice them...

Beside her, her boyfriend, Percy, squeezed her hand, she squeezed back, he was nervous. She understood that, she too was feeling the same, anyone would when in the situation they were currently in... surrounding them, were hundreds of thousands of monsters, maybe even millions. Annabeth was not typically a cowardly person, she was rarely afraid of anything, especially not monsters. Annabeth had trained her whole life to fight monsters, since the age of seven to defend herself, but when faced with such an enormous force, even the daughter of Athena was scared.

Fear was evident on the face of Percy as well, his usual troublemaker smile was replaced by weariness and exhaustion. Nervous droplets of sweat rolled down his once handsome face, plastering his disheveled jet black hair onto his fore head. His sea green eyes were no longer shining as they used to, now darkened by horrors they had seen.

Annabeth gripped the hilt of her Drakon bone sword tightly, she was afraid, only a fool wouldn't be. The touch of her sword somehow comforted her slightly though, maybe it was because she knew that even though they were in the home of the monsters, there were till friendly creatures here. She had gotten the sword after losing her dagger, from a friendly giant named Damasen, who helped them lead the titans pursuing them away. Percy too had a sword, though his wasn't white like hers, Percy wielded an ancient Greek xiphos, made of celestial bronze named Riptide, that turns into a ball point pen when not in use.

Only Bob seemed to not be anxious, he walked with confidence among the monsters, as if he were their leader. Well... technically he was. Bob was in fact actually the titan lord of the west, Iapetus. He had led these monsters against the gods before having his memories wiped out by a dip in the river Lethe. Surrounded by ranks of monsters dressed in full battle armor, Bob looked extremely out of place, with only his blue janitor uniform and his Einstein like hair sticking up at odd places.

On Bob's shoulder, laid a small calico cat, they had found it wondering around, and Bob had taken a liking to it, naming it Small Bob. According to Percy, it was sabre-tooth tiger that was born in the Smithsonian Museum, and was destroyed on the orders of Atlas. Annabeth didn't particularly understand what it meant, but she did not bother to question him any further. She had more pressing matters to think about, like how they were supposed to escape the pit.

They had fallen into Tartarus a while ago, Annabeth didn't know how long exactly. Time was difficult down in the abyss, it could have been hours, days, weeks, months, years or even decades. Annabeth was pretty sure Tartarus was purposely allowing them to live as a part of his game. they had been wandering for days, following the river Phlegeton, until Bob found them after Percy name dropped him.

Bob had been their guide ever since, he was familiar with the area, it being his prison for many millenniums, but of course he had forgotten about that. Annabeth didn't trust Bob, she knew his memories were recovering due to the healing effect of Tartarus on monsters and titans. Soon he would remember everything, and Annabeth wasn't sure Bob would be on their side when he remembers.

The atmosphere was terrible, after all they were in Tartarus, everything in there was designed to kill them. Annabeth could feel herself starting to breath harder as the healing effects of the water from the river Phlegeton started to ware off. She could feel the blisters start to form on her skin, and the sharp glass like ground digging into her heels. So far they were relatively safe under the protection of the Death Mist, preventing the monsters from seeing Percy and herself, but she was not sure how helpful the Death Mist was going to be when they start suffocating on the deadly air in Tartarus. The river was too far away to access, it was now or never, they had to get to the Doors before it was too late.

Then... everything went wrong... horribly wrong...

••••

_**[Present]**_

When Annabeth said that everything went horribly wrong, it was the understatement of the century... no, of the millennia.

It started with the explosions... thundering explosions that rocked the ground, scattering the monsters, who ran around blindly, causing a stampede, hundreds of monsters crushed under thousands of other monsters.

Luckily, most monsters were too afraid to run in the direction of Bob. The first who did received a spear straight through the chest, immediately exploding in a shower of yellow colored dust.

Then, the monsters could suddenly see Percy and Annabeth, whose faces regained color and lost all its wrinkles; the Death Mist has been stripped of, revealing them to the monster army.

"Bloody brilliant" Percy exclaimed sarcastically.

Then came the fog. Dark, maroon, and opaque, it enveloped the monsters, obscuring them from Annabeth. Strangely, the mist didn't seem to be able to touch neither Percy nor Annabeth, every move made, will cause the thick fog to retreat slightly, as if there were a barrier between them.

Bob however, was covered in the fog, only a silhouette figure could be made out. A distinct purr came from Small Bob on Bob's shoulder, quickly crawling into the safety that was Bob's uniform.

The situation was dire, monsters could easily attack them while hiding in the fog, unbeknownst to Percy and Annabeth.

Then it got worse...

At this point, rational people would be asking: _how much worse could it get? _Much. much, much worse. The ground they were standing on exploded, sending Annabeth flying, shrapnel flying everywhere. Annabeth crashed, sliding a few feet from where she landed, the glass-like rocks on the ground tearing her arm open, fresh blood oozing out of the wound.

The pain shot up her arm like fire. She cringed. It exploded in her head with a blinding whiteness. It made her dizzy. It made her reel. The pain was like needles that had been dipped in alcohol had been jammed through her skin, as if electricity wired straight into her spine.

This was bad, really bad... Annabeth didn't know what to do, she had no excess to nectar and ambrosia, the river Phlegeton was miles away, she had no means of healing her wound. She needed to find Percy, they needed to get to the doors quickly, they were running out of time.

Groaning in pain, Annabeth pushed herself up, trying to stand up, that's when she noticed it, her leg, was bleeding profusely, a deep wound was visible, a piece of shrapnel had lodged itself into her right leg. And that wasn't the bad part, it was that she could not feel her right leg at all.

"Percy!" Annabeth cried desperately, "Percy can you you hear me?"

"Annabeth! Where are you? Are you okay?" She could hear him, but it was far away and the sound came from every direction, almost as if Tartarus had made it so, this was part of his little game.

She clenched her fist, digging her nails into her palms, she hated being treated like a toy that the gods and other immortals could play with. She had been treated like that all her life, and she was sick of it.

She pushed herself up, her forearms bearing the weight of her body, as she slowly crawled aimlessly, shouting for Percy, hoping he would be able to find her. The pain was excruciating, the rough surface of the ground cutting up her fore arms, blood pooling around her. She was getting dizzy, she could hardly breathe, the effects of the river Phlegeton almost gone, her arms felt like they were on fire, her blood forming a puddle around her.

Suddenly, Annabeth felt a sharp jolt of pain from the back of her thigh, she whirled her head back and screamed. There it stood, a creature the size of a grizzly bear, its paw on the back of her thigh, its claws digging into her flesh. Its red eyes staring straight into hers, its teeth bared ready to attack. Annabeth striked first, swinging her bone sword with a wide arc at the beast. It jumped back, before charging at her again.

This time, Annabeth was prepared, she kneeled on her one good leg, resting her weight on it. As the monster ran towards her, she thrust her sword forward, catching the beast in its eye. A thundering roar came from the beast, Annabeth took the opportunity to stab the beast in the throat, silencing it.

Annabeth breathed a sigh of relieve, that was close, too close. How did the monster mange to sneak up on her? Annabeth didn't know, she was lucky she even survived that attack.

But it wasn't over yet, Annabeth knew that, the attack had awakened her, to the vulnerability of her position. She had a feeling the guttural howl the beast had emitted was not just a pain respond, but probably also a call to its brethren.

Low growls could be heard from all around her. Annabeth wasn't sure she could take on that many hell hounds at once, she barely survived the first attack, she wasn't sure how she was going to win this one.

Through the fog, appeared two hell hounds, the others seemed to be hiding, waiting. One bared it's teeth menacing, disgusting strings of saliva dripping down its chin. The black coats of fur on the creatures were scarred, rough and dirty, full of flies surrounding it, patches of skin were exposed. They were woefully thin, their ribs were visible. This was unlike and hell hound she had seen before, definitely not like Percy's pet hell hound, Mrs O'Leary, whose black fur was silky and shiny.

If the hell hounds didn't look so menacing, she would almost feel bad for having to kill them, they were monsters after all, and the were also going to kill if she didn't. Those two hell hounds looked like they were the underlings of their pack, sent out to attack her by their pack, to see what would happen. She sympathized with them, she was also often used as a pawn in the gods' plan, though she would sympathize with them so much more if they weren't going to kill her.

After several seconds of staring into their deadly red eyes, they charged. With one coming from the right and the other from the left, Annabeth struck down the one from the left with a wide swing at it, cutting its head clean off, it let out a cry of pain, and exploded into particles of yellow sand. The second one wasn't as easily disposed of, its razor sharp claw digging deep into her back, spilling blood, staining the ground with her blood.

Annabelth screamed in agony, sweat rolled down her back, entering the wound, blinding her with pain, as if her skin was being ripped off her body by a burning scalpel. Annabeth could hardly concentrate on anything other than the excruciating pain she was feeling on her back.

Her vision was turning blurry, her legs felt like jelly, she had lost too much blood from the wounds on body. She didn't know how much longer she could keep up fighting the hell hound.

She turned, swinging her sword wildly, catching only whiskers this time, the hound had retreated just in time.

Annabeth's arm felt weak as she prepared to strike again, she was starting to pale. The beast rushed forward again, this time its mouth wide open, to bite her head off. She swung her sword feebly, catching it in the mouth, cutting deep into the beast.

Clenching it teeth, refusing to let go of the sword imbedded into its mouth. Annabeth struggled as she tried to pull her sword out, but the hound's grip was far too great. Gripping the ivory blade was straining to the beast, Annabeth could tell, behind the rage in those red eyes, she could see pain, the sides of its mouth were already disintegrating, sand drizzled from its cheek, it was dying. _Then why in Hades is it still holding the ruddy sword?_

Then it hit her, it was not letting go because... She released her grip, using a back roll to put distance between herself and the hound. But it was too late. The pack of hounds attacked. The rocks of the ground dug into her already wounded back, slashing it up even more. She writhed in pain on the ground, the pain was unbearable, like rubbing salt into an open wound.

The hell hounds attacked from every direction.

Annabeth couldn't move, her sword was lost, she couldn't defend herself. A hound sank its teeth into her biceps, trying to rip out her arm, another bit into her good leg, and another slashed at her abdomen.

Annabeth struggled, relentlessly, not willing to give up. She will not die like this, she couldn't, she had to see her loved ones again... Punching one of the hell hounds in the snout, she pushed away another, kicking off the off the hound biting her leg.

She tried getting up on to one leg, and immediately regretted her decision, blinding pain shot up her leg, collasping under the weight of her body. The monsters pounced onto her, stopping her feeble attempts at an escape. Once again mauling at her body, this time at her wounded and slashed up back.

The pain was excruciating, every fibre of her being told her to give in, to end the suffering. She was tired, her arms were a bloodied mess, bone and sinew were visible. _why keep fighting? _What was the point of it, she was as good as dead, she couldn't fight back, there was no one to help her, Percy could be dead for all she knew... her arms swayed, no longer resisting the onslaught of slashes, falling to the ground.

_This is the end_. Annabeth closed her eyes, as the darkness consumed her...

A single tear rolled down her bloodied cheek, she whispered her final words:

"Goodbye Percy..."

_••••_

**Hello there people, this essentially a dare from my friends to write about my favorite fictional character dying in the most gruesome way I could think of.**

**This is also a two part story. If you don't want Percy to die, DON'T read the second part.**

**I don't actually have a plan for this story, I guess I could add more to it, I do have some ideas, I'm just not particularly sure about my ability to write.**

**If I do continue, it will probably take a long time... just tell me if you do want me to... i don't want to accidentally write something so bad it ruins your interest in reading.**

**If you somehow managed to enjoyed it, could you do me a favor and leave a review, and some advice for me to improve this.**

**And I'm sorry if my writing is so bad you want kill to me.**

**Thanks...**


End file.
